IMPERIAL COLLEGE CAMPUS – On Friday the 13th, a well-intentioned dating show descended into complete “nothing” after a group of Buddhist monks walked into the ‘Imperial X LSE: Take Me Out’ Valentine’s Day event. Prior to this disruption, conversation between contestants was stilted – due to the equally stilted social skills of students from both universities.

The event began relatively normally, but within a few minutes (once every contestant had answered the question ‘So what do you study?’), conversation came to a halt. Even the host of the competition echoed this, commenting, “You could hear a pin drop”, and that bored audience members had lost interest in the show. Some allegedly resorted to adding the people sitting next to them on LinkedIn. It was then decided that a brief intermission would take place in hopes of finally breaking the awkward silence, with doors opened and contestants encouraged to step outside.

It was during this intermission that the first Buddhist monk stumbled in and, upon witnessing the total silence in the room, beckoned his peers to join him. At the monks’ entry, one particularly enthused viewer shouted out, “Finally, some eye candy!” as bursts of applause and approving nods came from the audience. One contestant, however, was not as impressed and rushed to pop her balloon before the monks could get any closer. “The last thing we need is more quiet balding men in this competition”, she told the Raccoon. We spoke to one anonymous contestant who shared: “I just assumed this was a surprise ‘bombshell’ round. I mean, yeah, I did wonder why they were all wearing the same uniform, but I thought it was probably a dress code or something.”

However, to the disappointment of (almost) everyone watching, the monks walked out once they realised that the silence they had detected was in fact awkward, instead of peaceful. The Raccoon received a comment from one monk who left with a more positive perspective, handing our reporter a recruitment card with a handwritten note on the other side. ‘Clearly, marriage is not in the cards for these students. The universe may be redirecting them to another path.